Chapter Seven

Visitors

Saturday 8:00 A.M.

"I swear to God, Bertinelli, if you didn't go home last night, I'm going to kill you," Ricky screamed, opening the door to my office. People just outside the door stopped in their tracks, wondering why their boss was yelling. Upon realizing I was the cause, they shrugged their shoulders and proceeded to work on their tasks at hand.

"Calm down," I stated slowly, looking up at the man whose blood was boiling. "I went home." He looked at me incredulously. Holding up a hand to my heart, I chuckled, "I promise, Ricky. I went home, took a shower, ate a hot meal, and went to bed. You can check the video surveillance in the parking lot if you don't believe me. I got in my car and drove away."

"What time?" he asked suspiciously.

Scoffing, I replied, "Oh, what does it matter?"

"Save me the trouble of looking at the tapes, will you? And you know I would."

"Around…one."

"One? One o'clock? In the A.M.?" He exhaled noisily, looking up at the ceiling as his hand ran across his face. "It's eight o'clock right now. Which means you had approximately seven hours to get home, take a shower, cook some food, eat the food, get some sleep, and then come back to work. If my calculations are correct—and they always are, mind you—that means you got about three hours of sleep."

"Two, but good guess, considering your calculations are always far from correct.." He almost began to hit his head against the doorframe. "Look, Ricky…I'm going to admit it: I'm not normal. I don't function like a normal person."

"And now you know why you worry me so much? You just blatantly admitted to being weird."

"I know! You make think it's odd, but I really don't need that much sleep at night. It's not about how much sleep you get, it's about when you get it. You sleep in cycles of—."

"I really don't care about your cycles, Helena, or your psycho mumbo-jumbo babble. I have a wife of my own, thank you."

"Then what's the problem?" Crossing my arms across my chest, I raised an eyebrow at him. My lip tugged and I wanted so hard to laugh, but I had to keep my composure. This is what Ricky and I did on a normal basis. It surprised a lot of people how I have survived this long in the company without being fired.

He shook his head in defeat. "FYI: you missed your chance at a cover article with Bruce Wayne. We're going to go ahead and run the story on that dog. You know: the one that jumped—."

"Through a window to save that old lady. You'd think that the Gotham Gazette would have more interesting things to write about. But that's fine…about the cover article, not the dog. Although that dog must have been pretty strong to jump through a window that high." Immediately I thought of Batman coming through my window. But as soon as the thought entered my mind, it left. There was no reason for Ricky to ever know about his appearance in my office the previous night. "It's kind of odd. But like I said, it's fine."

"You sure?" he asked, slightly puzzled. Pushing himself off the doorframe, he walked closer to my desk, eyeballing me. "Don't let this private investigation get in the way of your obligations. Before you know it, this thing will take over your career and your life."

"It is just one cover article…how many have I had? Dozens. Don't worry. It'll be okay."

"Sure it will." He began to walk out of my office.

"Ricky!" I shouted before he could go too far. He came back, peeking through the entrance. "Thanks…you know, for caring and stuff."

He grinned, but only for a split second. "Don't get sentimental on me, Bertinelli. I have a reputation to uphold."

Saturday 7:00 P.M.

Dear Helena,

I bought a new scanner. I'm sorry that it has taken me so long…as of right now, money is hard to come by. It's a picture and article taken from a local newspaper. Your father was a rather large character in Italy. His death was not taken lightly. Somehow, they retrieved an image from video supervision at the building. You might be able to make something of it more than myself.

Email me back when you get this.

Love,

Marcello

After reading his message, I downloaded the attachment. The image was grainy and hard to interpret, but memories sparked my mind as I saw the marble floor, champagne spilled with broken glasses and blood pooling around an older gentleman's head. Another man was dressed in black, as many of them present at the occasion were, and held a gun in his hand. His body was facing away from the camera, but his hair was distinguishably noticeable as dark brown or black. Unfortunately, no other characteristics stood out except that he was average height, maintained average weight, and an average build.

This man was…average. Nothing set him apart from other men, except for the fact that he held a gun in his right hand. I have never been too familiar with guns; I knew what people told me, and that was about it.

Immediately I began to print off the picture along with my cousin's email. It was insurance…just in case someone should hack into my email account.

Hell, it had happened before. At least this time I'd be safe with an extra copy.

What Ricky said earlier had struck a chord with me. I needed to get some sleep. There would be no possible way of functioning at work or while researching if I didn't.

So, instead of running down to the staff's kitchen for some stale coffee, I decided to grab any necessary dossiers and stack them in my briefcase. Before too long, I had turned off all the lights to my office and locked my door, heading out of the building.

Saturday 11:00 P.M.

"Gordon, you there?" Batman stood outside the window leading to Detective Gordon's bedroom. He was in bed asleep, his wife sleeping next to him, a book lying across her chest. The room was dark, and Batman began to hear some rustling.

"What in God's name are you doing?" Gordon walked over to the open window, whispering very lightly. "My bedroom window? If my wife wakes up—"

"She won't," Batman whispered back. "It'll only take a minute."

"Then you better talk fast," Gordon threatened.

"She's in. Bertinelli's in."

"Good…good. She's smart—I trust that she'll keep this investigation of ours a secret?"

"I suppose she will. She already had a good deal of research."

"Yeah?"

"Stuff about armor piercing rounds and M60's in all of the Joker's murders."

"You can't get that stuff in Gotham." Gordon folded his arms across his chest.

"I think she was leaning towards the black market."

He sighed. "It's possible. We've had a few cases pop up here and there dealing with certain aspects of the black market. There are different sources one can go to in order to get what they need: ammunition, weapons, just like you said."

"You think you could help me out? Give me some names?"

"I'll look into it, but don't count on anything. Like I mentioned before, they're watching me like a hawk." Gordon looked behind him and to his wife. She lay in the same position as earlier. "You need to get out of here."

"Already ahead of you." Gordon looked back through the window: Batman nodded his head and disappeared into the darkness of the night.

Sunday 12:00 A.M.

It was the first night I had been in my bed before three in the morning in a few weeks. My bed felt lumpy and quite uncomfortable, but it was still much better than the couch in my office. My apartment was small, but nice. With my salary, it was all I could afford.

I certainly was not the type to live paycheck to paycheck. I had a good sum in the bank, but since I am an in-depth planner, that was going to be used for my retirement…thirty years from now.

I was good at my job, but I never really felt like I enjoyed it or was fulfilled by it. While most people in college were slacking off, drinking themselves into a stupor, I was taking on almost twice as many classes per semester. I got my degree in Journalism in three years and was in the top of my class.

They say your college years are the years of discovery. I never cared enough to "discover" myself. I did what I needed in order to lead a successful life. But I was never really…satisfied.

This is essentially everything I thought of right before I would go to sleep at night. What I did…what I should have done…what I could relive…I reminisced on everything in my past.

Before I drifted into unconsciousness, there was a draft in my bedroom—just enough to cause me to shiver. Snapping out of my semi-reverie, I sat up in my bed, staring into darkness. There was a presence in the room …other than my own, of course. He was hovering over my dresser in the corner of the room. I could only guess that his sense of sight was somewhat better than mine: my eyes had not yet adjusted to the lack of light.

It was almost a dead giveaway—I had told Batman that if I were not in my office, I would most certainly be in my apartment. Now that it was well after hours, the only logical choice would be to come to my home. Unfortunately his presence and lack of introductions had made my heart race and the hairs on my neck stand up.

If he wasn't going to make the first introduction, then there was only one other option. "Batman?" I asked, barely above a whisper. He jolted, strangely rustling through papers on my dresser. "What are you doing?" I asked, leaning over my bed to turn on the lamp.

Light illuminated the room and as I glanced at my dresser, then around my room. I was the only occupant. My window was still open, the curtains swaying with the breeze. I got up from my bed and walked towards the pane, glancing down, then up, left, and right.

No one was in sight.

Hey, all! Sorry for such the long delay. Tomorrow is my last day of (high) school. It's bittersweet, but it's time to move on to my next stage in life (COLLEGE!) Anyways, life has been just a tad bit busy for poor ol' me…haha. It's in talks that I might be getting a children's book published. A friend and I made it for a class a few months back. Some people got a hold of it and decided that it's pretty decent. Who knows what'll happen with it!

Besides all that, I finished a 68-page movie script last week, and now am in the process of filming it. We'll be entering it into the Bluegrass Independent Film Festival, located right here in Kentucky! That's pretty exciting, too.

Please review!